The number 23

On his birthday, Walter Sparrow, an amiable dog-catcher, takes a call that leaves him dog bit and late to pick up his wife. She's browsed in a bookstore, finding a blood-red-covered novel, a murder mystery with numerology that loops constantly around the number 23. The story captivates Walter: he dreams it, he notices aspects of his life that can be rendered by "23," he searches for the author, he stays in the hotel (in room 23) where events in the novel took place, and he begins to believe it was no novel. His wife and son try to help him, sometimes in sympathy, sometimes to protect him. Slowly, with danger to himself and to his family, he closes in on the truth

A review from cinema blend gave the film 2 ½ stars out of 5

IMDb gave the film 3 stars out of 5

IGN movies gave it a 2 ½ starts out of 5

The overall rating for this film is around half was not brilliant but not rubbish it has a good story line but the end goes know where.

Mise-en-scène: The beginning of the film is just setting the scene the music is quite light and the character is talking but as a voice over this limits us as we don’t make a strong connection. The film goes back in time before strange connections kept happening zooms out from a Christmas tree this makes the view happier and does feel anxious. Most the way through the film non-diegetic sound is being use slow suspense music and his voice over. all the way through the film they put suspense type music and the mood doesn’t lighten up the voice over makes the viewer feel like they are thinking it. This make you make connections with the number 23. He goes into a dream type world where he images things around him from the book that are going to happen and always tries to stop it. Throughout the film he get more and more obsessed and goes into the book a lot more often the pace of the film speeds up a little as he gets more obsesses the music becomes more dramatic with a heavy drum beat so that the viewer feels in the story and they start making connections with the number 23 in their own life. Towards the end of the film when his family is broken the music is sadder but still has the heavy drum. Right at the end of the film when he nearly get hit by the number 23 bus the music dies down and you see the bright lights of the bus and the noise of the bus the light make you think of heaven that he has seen his light but as he just dodges out the way the music start faintly in a happier mood but not completely happy this is to make the view happy that they are coming together as a family.

Comment on the representation of Englishness in Midsomer Murders

Midsomer murders s13e03p01

Mise-en-scene- at the start of the clip they battle with to cultures as it starts with a Weston rider. This makes the audience feel like he is an outsider looking in on the village but in contrast with that he is riding a white horse which could suggest that he is a hero. He then reaches a typical English village with thatch roof cottages. The streets are deserted and only a few people notice that he is riding around the village, it then goes to a shot in the pub this is to show how everyone in the village is close and this represents English countryside as everyone knows everyone as most villages are small with a very small community. The horse back rider jumps off his horse grabs his gun and walks steadily to the house this shows that he is a calm cool person and nothing is going to get in the way off what he is going to do. He kicks down the door this makes you feel on edge as you are not sure what’s going to happen next. The music stops and you are left in suspense then after a few seconds you hear a gun shot and an oldish woman runs out screaming. Then cuts to the midsomers name and you are left hanging. Then some more riders come onto the screen but this riders look nobler and are carrying flags from around the world this shows a multi-cultural Britain. They show a helter skelter which is a traditional English fun fair ride this contrast with the Weston play going on in the background.

There is then an establishing shot of the main character. He is playing a shooting game which makes you feel like he wants to be a young boy again and in doing the scene it make you feel childish and happy. The shot it of a car diving to what looks like an ordinary house but when he walks to the door and calls for the person they are know where to be seen. This contrasts the last scene of feeling happy as it makes you anxious. Another car drives up ferociously they use a over the shoulder angle to make you feel part of the action. The other man hears the car runs back to his own car like he has done something wrong the other man pull out a gun at starts shooting at the other man in the car driving away. This has an English tone to it as the stereo type of the English farmer is meant to have a shotgun. They flick from one character to another as they drive off this put the audience into suspense.

The music for the first few scenes until you hear the lady scream is a Weston type to go along with the rider. Then you hear the midsomer murders theme tune until more horses come into shot. The rest of the shots have diegetic sound. You then get to the house scene and you hear a faint violin this is to add suspense. The two characters in the cars speak in a farmer English accent. The camera shots are quick and they pan a lot as the characters are always moving and the scenes are more action then just in depth conversations this to set the scene and to get you into the story as the beginning was a cliff-hanger.   

Narrative theorys

Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

Tzvetan Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

Claude Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD and EVIL – we understand the concept of GOOD as being the opposite of EVIL. Levi -Strauss
was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. For example, if we look at Science Fiction films we can identify a series of binary oppositions which are created by the narrative

Earth- Space                Good-Evil

Humans- Aliens           Past-Present

Normal-Strange           Known-Unknown

Barthes’ enigma code – The narrative will establish enigmas or mysteries as it goes along. Essentially, the narrative functions to establish and then solve these mysteries. Roland Barthes' narrative theory claims that a narrative can be broken down into five codes or sets of rules. These are:

1.       Action code which refers to the events taking place

2. Enigma code which refers to the questions raised and answered
3. Semantic code which refers to the characters and characterisation
4. Referential code which refers to the information and explanation
5. Symbolic code which refers to the connotations of signs

Reference: Wikipedia, filmreference.com

Hollyoaks - season 18 Ep. 32

Gilly and Rhys start shouting and getting aggressive as Gilly slept with Jacqui. The scene then cuts to Jacqui who is about to go into her house to find her mum asleep and goes to her for comfort.

Camera

The camera starts with over the shoulder shots to show the expression on the characters faces to see how they react to the news about to be told. The shot then goes to a mid shot to show Rhys getting up and jumping on Gilly then as the conversation progresses and the characters get angrier they shot from under rhys so that he would look more dominant and bigger as he is the character who is angry and then it switches to Gilly looking down on him so that he looks more vulnerable and a lower power as he is the one who has done wrong and should look up to and be loyal to his friend but instead he slept with his girlfriend and should be looked down on.   

In the next shot Jacqui walks into it. it is a close-up so that you can see how she is feeling .then it is close up of her bags in her hand and the door and see walks towards the door which is light so it looks like she is walking into light and gives it a zooming out effect with shot stays the same until she reaches the door then pans with a close-up shot up the arm of the sleeping mum with a mug in her hand this could symbolise that she was waiting for her daughter always whenever she is needed.

Sound

In the first scene there is diegetic sound only. There is the characters speaking and some noise from the tv  this to so you focus on what the characters are saying and so that you get the right mood of the characters. The music on the tv gets quieter as the characters get more angry so that nothing draw attention away from who the characters are feeling and what they are saying.  The second scene there is non-diegetic sound and some diegetic sound there is mood music being played to shoe that there doesn’t need to be words to see how she feels and no words can be said she is that sad. The music being played is a soft melody of a keyboard and a man singing quite high pitched this makes the mood soft sad and not happy.

Editing

the first scene has quick cuts between every shot as the pace is quick and the energy is high. In the second the cuts are slower than the first ones  as the mood is sadder so if the cuts were quicker it would ruin the mood.

Mise-en scene

The location of the first scene is in a house living room in what is usually a relaxed environment the character Gilly is wearing darker clothes then rhys so this could represent good and evil as Gilly did something bad and rhys didn’t and he is wearing white. The second scene is outside to begin with it is dark with barley any light apart from light from the house which is like the light at the end of the tunnel the has all of her bags and is also wearing dark clothing which could indicate that she is also in the wrong and needs to look for the light as she need forgiveness.  In the house is light and looks warm as the mother is wearing only a small top. This playing on the stereotypes of the house it should be warm and welcoming which the daughter Jacqui needs.

the male gaze

The male gaze

Mulvey argued that in film, women are portrayed as sexual visual pleasures for men, an technique is used where the audience is put into the role of a man, and on screen the camera lingers on the female, displaying her as visual pleasure for men. In cinema theory,, Laura Mulvey identifies the Male Gaze, in sympathy with the statement that "Woman is a symptom of man." what this means is that femininity is a social construct, and that the feminine object the object of desire, is what constitutes the male lack, and his positive identity.